>> "inside washington"ng is brought you in part by the american federation of government employees, proud to make america work. for more information about afge and membership, visit afge.org. >> jt going to keep on keing on. until every sisingle person out there who needs to vote is going to go vote. >> this s week on "inside washington the end game. the last debate. >> nothing to governor romney just said is true. >> attacking me is not talking about how we deal witthe challenges in that mit uniteded states. >> the return of the abortion

debate. > eve when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, it is something that god intended to happen. >> the colin powell endorsement. >> i was proud and held to learn that we have his endorsement in the campaign. >> you have to wonder if that is based on issues or if he has aa slightly different reasoson for preferring preside obama. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> believe it or not, at the election is less than two weeks away and both candidates are running as if there is no tomorrow. . >> this is the first drop on our 48-hour flight around campaign marathon extvaganza. we are going to pull an all- nighter. sleep.

>> no question about it, we're seeing morore and more enthusiasm, more and more support. >> the economy grew at an annual rate of 2%. not gre, but better than expected. the final gdp report prior to the election. right here i have a shaky and i will ask each of you to step out on at. if the e election were held tomorrow mark, who would win? >> i should not go out on any limb given my way, but if the election were held tomorrow, barack obama would win, based on the superior effort of the obama campaign at this point turning out early voters. >> evan? >> butobama the whistle of a long way to go. >> nin >> i hate e doing this but obama because of the ground game. >> colby? >> the national tracking polls has been very close.

in the batattle e ground statates, obama still holds a lead and that will put him over the top. >> what is the ground again, mark? >> the organized effort by the campaign over months to identify and not only supppporters but people w who are undecide it, and persuade them on a one by one retail basis. weeks before election day, at you know who your voterers are and you get them to vote. >> in many of the battle ground states, obama has more field offices. >> it is down to micro-managingng and micro-issug these folks. republicans had a better ground game in 2004, and a lot of people think that is why they won that close electio and it fell into disrepairhey are building it back up now, bbut i don't think they are anywhere near where obama is yet. >> which candidate as the mt

enthusiastic and engaged, most dedicated supporters colby? >> that is a hard one to answer. i think that clearly after the first debate, the republican party had really enthusiastic supporters. romney did d do well comred to obama. there was disappointment with prident obama in n thee democratic ranks aer the first debate. i think he has start to regain some of that with the last two performances, but that has said --he first debate has had a tremendous impact. >> but wherever obama goes, you hear him say, out and vote, you have to vote. > on the votes that have low turnout rates. blacksand hispanics are people that he needs, and that catapulted h to the top in 2008. remember, there was a big turnout in 2 2008. those people lack the passion today and he needs to find them and get ththat out. >> the pew research center and a

recent harvard university poll indicates, if they are accurate, that fewer young people are going to turn out f for obama this time. >> i don't thihink you really need a survey to te you that. your own eyes and exexperiences can tell you that. i don't know anybody who says young people are going to vote more this year. >> the o one t thing obama has is this data mining thing, this state of the artrt and data mining information to find these people and get them out. we are abouto test howood that is. >> abortion is b back is an issue, and this is why -- a comment made during a debate by indiana republican senate candidate richard mourdock, who has been endorsed by mitt romney. >> life is a gift from god, and even when life begins in that horrle situation of rape, is something that god intended to happen. >> that is the tea party's

richard mourdock, who defeated veteran foreign policy expert richard lugar in the senatorial primary. the romney campaignuickly respded that the governor disagrees with those comments, they did not reflect his vie. the president has been losing ground to romney ang women. why is that? >> some of it is rebalancing, some of it is the effect of the first t debatei think. but i think that this kind of thing, as it snowballs along does have an effect, not because mr. mourdock said anything -- he was an artful. it was obvious what he was thinking. on the other hand, what he was thinking clearly is that rape is much less important than preserving a life, and for lot of women, saying that rape is not that important is a very unfortunate thing. romney has disagreed with them but he has not taken back the ad he is running for mouock.

>> every time you look on the cable news shows now you see some of a planned parenthood, some group or anothther, pro- abortion and so fth. the obama ople are running with this. will it have legs? >> i think it wl. everything is relative, but i think it will have a an impact. it calls attention to paul ryan, who shares the same view that there should be no exceptions for a mother for abortion in cases of rape or anything else, cept to that ryan's principal poposition gives way to politics and he is willing touy the mitt romney position that there should be some exceptions. >> don't you think that mos people have made up their minds on this issue years ago? >> they have but it is what energizes people to get out on voting day and go to the polls. >> we will look back if mitt romney wins and d say that the

first debate was as important as the first debate in 1960, when john f. kennedy close to the experience gapap between himself and richard nixon, who had been vice president for eight years he recreated himself as moderate massachusetts mitt and that enabled him to talk to women and suburban areas. as far as richard mourdock is concerned, i will be blunt, i joe donnelly man in that race. what he was getting was a consistent principle -- you believe that god life, that the conditions s under which the creation occurred, as tragic and personally painful as it might be -- he was talking about th life e to he was not defending the method -- >> which he ied to make clear.

[ mitt romney ] we have to work on a collaborative basis. look, the reason i'm in this race is there are people thatre really hurting today in this country. and we face this deficit -- could crush the future generations.mocrats both love america but we need to have leadership -- leadership in washington that

will actually bring people together and get the job done and could not care less if it's a repubblican or a democrat. i' done it before, i'll do it again. i'm mitt romney, and i approve this message. when we switched to fios we got better tv better phone better internet. it was like somebody like took our computer shook all the junk out of it. we're actually getting more for our money with fios. [ male announcer ] it's time to get more for your money. upgrade to verizon fi internet, tv and phone with our best price online. just $84.99 a month, guaranteed for one year with no annual contract. there's at least three computers. [ girl 1 ] a tablet. [ woman 1 ] couple of gaming systems. we could all be running at the same titime. we do not notice any dips. [ male announcer ] get tv rated #1 in customer satisfactction. and get the school year off to a great start with america's fastest most consistent and most reliable internet. internet is absolutely imperative for school nowadays. look up this, write an essay on that. my life is greatly improved because of fios. [ male announcer ] move up to fios today for just $84.99 a month for a year. with no annual contract there's no reason to wait. you should totally get

fios. [ male announcer ] visit verizon.com/whyfios now and see if you qualify for a $5 amazon gift card. there's no purchase necessary. welcome to life on fios. contact the verizon center for customers with disabilities at 800-974-6006 tttty/v. >> i think i.t. is up for grabs.. the president has a good chance to take the county and town,n, but governor romney has been running a fairly strong campapaign. >> loudoun county, virginia, is a bellwether county. it went for barack obama four years ago but then what republican year later in the

gubernatatial election. virgia is a battleground state. on friday morning, at the state appears to be trending towards romney. president obama and mitt romney had ent so much time in virginia and ohio that they will have t to start payiying taxes in both states. lelet's run the table of the battleground states and where they seem to be at this point. ohio. >> ohio remains beyond romney's grasped at this point in large part because obama is doing better there with white voters than he is across the country in large part in the northwest ohio and northeast ohio, which is the industrial belt, ere the auto bailout really made difference. its so much of a problem for romney there that rob portman on thursday night as he introduced romney in defiance, ohio for a huge cro is said "we have got to talk about this auto thing tonight." eyre still trying to explain that.

>> ken romney eastwind without oh? -- can romney win witho ohio? >> yes, but it will be a tough one to reachch. but it is still very close race. >> virginia? >> v virginia will still probably end op in obama's camp. >> i look at the polls when we started the program and romney is up on average -- >> there is another poll that shows that obama is up in virginia. but he has been running strong in virginia, and even with the heavair onslaught by romney, it still shows the northern virginia area, which will be very important in the state, supports barack obama. >> new hampshire could be in play. >> new hampshire traditionally

was a republican state. it only b became democratically presidential -- presidentiay democraratic recently. but the proroblem romney is that unless he real gets surge that covers a lot of these states, if he loses ohio and virginia, let's say, or ohio and ioiowa or ohio and wisconsin, he has to run the table on the other ones. >> you will get confused unless you are a jockey, but everybody seems agree that the path is clearer and simpler for obama than for romney, even though t. is such close race. it is easier to see the combinatn that gets -- >> a lot of talk about potential es in the electoral college. >> which i think is our reach, but let's be blunt about it, the momentum is in romney's direction has been since the

first debate. nina's mention of new hampshire -- their only three states from 2000 to 2004 from bu-court to bush-carry -- bush-gore to bush- kerry. that is how clely thdivided the country was then and it remai now. >> there is a different view, that the so-called romney surge is a myth when you look ofof the battleground states and the national polls. hardly a point w where you can say that the momentum has carried romney ahead of bararack obama. >> romney was dead in the water after that first debate.

the surge is what made him a contender. >> what is it about that debate that changed the tid >> obama's arrogance is his single biggest problem, and it showed hims sleepy, and diffent, whym i here. even in the last debate, which he won, he was too much of a put down on this, and that with women voters especially is a proboblem. >> i the thing is that it was not just that obama did poorly. it was that romney did well, and became, as mark says modate mitt. that is where republicans traditionally move after the primary. he had been savaged by obama in an alanche of ads and he redeemed himself.

>> both at h home and abroad he has proposed reckless policies. he praised it gege bush as a great economic steward and dick cheney as suchch showing wisdom and judgment. >> attacking me is not an agenda. charles krauthammer is off this week, but after t debate, i heard him say on fox x news that romney won the debate unequivocal, not just tactally, but strategically. his column, hgoes on to say that the president's tone petty and small, and that romney looked presidential. >> i said this was an example of me-too mitt. hessentially agreed with president obama on most of the key issues -- >> sounded like he was running for secretary of state.

>> he agreed with him on afghanistan, iraq, iran. the suggestion was that he was trng to look presidentl -- i don't know if that w the c case. the key was set back on his heels -- think he was set back on his heels by the directct challenge to him. he looks like somebody was captive of his talking pointnts and all he could do it was there. > -- was stare. >> he said a lot of nasty things in the primary process of russia is our busbiggest enemy sounding like he wanted to bomb iran tomorrow, tra wars with china from day one. thank god he was pulling back on that stuff. >> how do we know? how do we know which mitt is mi? it really was astonishing. to listen to that for policy -

foreign policy enunciateted it was st a mirror, and to hear that and then to look back at at he said weeks ago is to make you wonder, what is he really want to do it as president? >> he wants to be president. [laughter] >> well, he is full of mitt. [laughter] you heard him say that we want a peaceful planet. you heardim say the word "peace" three times in two sentences. and then heaid we don't wawant another iraq. basically, it came down to "i am not dick cheney, i am not donald rumsfeld." but i think that the debate while the president w was more knowledgeable and more in control and command, he came across t to intents -- too intenstely and he did not get a break that he needed in the campaign. i think he won the debate, and

the gallup poll, on independents, two-one, but i don't think he got the 18 needed. > -- i don't think that he got the age that he needed. >> he could, because while he did well in the second and third debate, nothing could overcome what he did in the fit debate. he let people down, he let himself down. [ male announcer ] citibank's app for ipad makes it easy for anne to manage her finances when she's on the go. even when she's not going anywhere. citibank for ipad. easier banking. standard at citibank.

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>> when you look at colin powell you have to wonder that th if that is based on issues s or if he has a slightly different reason for preferring g president obama. >> what reason would that be? >> well, if you have somebody of your own racece that you're proud of being president of the united states, i alaud colin standing with him. >> former new hampshire gov. john sununu, w latater said that he does not doubt that colin powell's support for obama is based on anything other than policies. obama has a steep drop his support with white voters from four years ago. >> lack of enthusiasm. >> is there a racial factor here? well, let's focus on that john sununu for just a second.d.

for john sununu, a moment's thought is a moment wasted. [laughter] he is known for comoming up with lines like that. he knew what he was saying. >> he would dig himself into a hole and fall there was about it. >> he has bically laid o a formulation that colin powell should be proud of supporting barack obama because they belong to theame race bewhich means that obviously john sununu, being white is proud to support mitt romney. john sununu is, believe me, and i've known him a long time -- he is writing a book cled "dale carnegie wasas wrong." [laughter] and it will not be a bestseller. >> everybody has crazy uncles in the attic, and ron has john sununu, and he has donald trump who is offering $5 million if obama w would just releases college records -- >> he doesn't keep sununu in the

attic. >> colbyby is right, they put sununu out there regularly. the romney campaign is very disciplined, and t they are not puputting out surrogates or spokespersons who are not speaking what they want spoken. >> the president had a good line when asked about donald trump on the jay leno show. >> the president said, "it all goesack to what we were growing up together in kenya and we were playing soccer and he was not good at i" probably the best line i've hed ththe president delivered in the whole campaign. >> unfortunately people out there say, "c, i told you." we are almost there, we are almost at the finish line could we will talk about that next week. see you next week.

> "inside washington" is brought you in part by the american federation ofof government employees, proud to make america work. r more infortion about afge and membership, visit afge.o.org. [ mitt romney ] we have to work on a collaborative basis. look, , the reason i'm in this race is there are people that are really hurting day in this country. and we facece this deficit -- could crush the fure generations. and republicans and democrats both love america but we need to have leadersp -- leadership in washington that will actually bring people together and get the job done and could notare

less if it's a republican or a democrat. i've done it before, i'll do it again. i'm mitt romney, and i approve this message.